The Katrina Disaster: And You Wonder Why America is Hated by Many
Catastrophes are indeed terrible. Its not just the deaths that occur as a result that are terrible but also the disasters tendency to create divisions within our nation. Katrina reassured the American people and the rest of the world that America cannot handle another disaster. From this
"catastrophe," as you may call it, I learned quite a bit about our nation as it is right now.

It is unfortunate that the African American race has continued to be depressed throughout American history. Katrina was the worst possible situation because New Orleans to begin with had a low socioeconomic level and much of the population were composed of African American people. The very incompetent state and local governments werent of great use either, considering that there were local officials in charge of having to keep a sturdy wall in place when instead they were eating at expensive restaurants when they should have been doing their job. That alone may have been the biggest reason why so many died and why New Orleans is a living pond as we speak It should also be noted that the National Guard took over many of the duties which were of responsibility to the local governments, which were obviously too inept and incapable of carrying out their function. On top of that, it also didn't help that the federal government stepped in a wee bit late.

I agree that it's the local and state governments responsibility first to take charge of its own functions, but Louisana was always known to have the most corrupt and insufficient governments catering to the people. So in such a situation the federal government should have gone into New Orleans right away without question. In short this was a failure at all ends and by all governments, even if the federal government had the least amount of actual "culpability."

But with Katrina the race cards were once again brought up. Kanye West, one of Americas most thriving music artists, took it to a new level when in a charity event he boldy coined Bush a racist. Now personally I dont think Bush is racist but a lot of our American people have a tendency toward it. Its sad because many Americans, predominatly white people, have used Katrina to justify why black people are “able-bodied humans” who should have been able to take care of themselves and their family. Thats reasonable to an extent, but I get sick hearing people bring up the Hip hop culture as an argument and how black people are collectively unmotivated to look after themselves and be productive members of society.

Why is it unfortunate?

Because to a certain extent that is true.

I just say that it's difficult to make such generalizations because many African Americans as you may say have not had a fair shake at life as, say, many white people have. Its called social factors. The point of the post is to sum up the racial inequality that still exists in America today. When something goes wrong we still point fingers. I do believe that people should hold personal accountability for their actions and for their well being, regardless of race, but I just wish that before you can spout off stuff like that (Im talking to people in general), realize the flaws in our governments and how we as a nation approach the racial inequality before attacking the race itself. "White" people stripped African Americans of their cultural identity throughout American history---the least we can do is try to help them up get back on par with the rest of society. Not necessarily justifying violence in 50 cents songs but this was a human issue and regardless of how liberalized we think our society is there will always be inequality. It really is unfortunate.